Job Opportunities in the Retail World

chillibreeze writer — Bindu

Organized retail in India has grown at a pace of over 40% per annum in the last 2 years. India is expected to be among the top 5 retail markets in the world in 10 years.

The wheel of retail boom has been set rolling in India and as it gathers momentum, it will need more and more trained personnel. The presence of large corporate organizations like Reliance, Aditya Birla, Tata and Future Group has already resulted in a requirement for trained professionals in the field of retail. The entry of international brands has only increased and reaffirmed this requirement.

The earlier mom and pop stores— generally single stores with limited merchandise—where the proprietor took all the decisions, has now changed to large stores, mostly chain stores offering a wide variety of merchandise. Each type of store in a chain has a certain image, look, feel and product offering, which is consistent even if the store is in Delhi or Kerala.

Merchandise is now seasonal and changes with fashions and trends across the world. These stores now import all kinds of goods from all over the world and bring it to the doorstep of the well-traveled and demanding Indian consumer.

The competition is so high that if a particular item is not available in a particular store, the consumer drives up to the next store and buys it. Retailers are now very worried about loss of sales due to non-availability, and replenishment strategies are top of mind for them.

To keep the retail wheel churning in a smooth way, there is now a whole new systematic process. For each of these processes, specialists are required to carry out the functions. With the huge amount of money being invested in retail in terms of real estate properties and large quantity of merchandise, companies are also investing heavily in trained professionals.

If we go through a typical process that a retail (e.g. apparel retail) firm goes through we can see the various job opportunities that it throws up.

Category Management

The merchandise team which includes the designer, product development manager and sourcing manager put together the range (collection) for the season. The designer and product development manager study the international fashion trends that the consumer needs in the Indian market, competitors’ trends and prepare a requirement brief for the sourcing manager.

The sourcing managers are the eyes and ears for this team and should have the ability to source the right products at the right price. Many a time, the sourcing manager has to source the raw material, as well as the manufacturer who will convert it into the final product.

The range is presented to the buyer who takes the final decision on which of these styles will be bought, which to you and me means those styles that are actually going to be in the stores. The buyer works with the retail planner on this.

The planner needs to have the ability to number crunch and work out the quantities based on the allocated space. In addition, he needs to keep a tab on open-to-buy available (buying budget), stock-turn and profitability requirements decided by the category manager. The buyer then finalizes the buying plan, and along with the sourcing manager, works with the supplier to raise the purchase order and plan their delivery timelines.

Retailers also have quality check personnel who check the quality of the product at different stages of its manufacture, ensuring that the final product on the shelf is of the best quality. This entire work is under the guidance of the category manager who is finally responsible to the business head.

Marketing

The marketing team works with the category team to work out the packaging of the products (labels, tags, boxes etc) and the various advertisements and promotions for the product.

Visual Merchandising

The visual merchandiser works in tandem with the marketing and category teams to offer the best visual presentation for the product. This includes the merchandise layout, the fixtures, mannequins, accessories to decorate the area, etc.

They also need to work on seasonal promotions –festivals, back-to-school etc. to generate the consumer’s interest and to make the entire buying experience a pleasurable one. The visual merchandiser also works on the store window display, which is the face of the store, to generate footfalls into the store.

Supply Chain Management

Supply chain management requires logistics managers, who control the movement of stocks from supplier to warehouse and to the various stores; inventory managers who control availability of stock; and warehouse managers, who undertake the actual operations at the warehouses.

Operations

The work of back end operations personnel begins with identifying the locations for the store. This may require the person to be a real estate specialist. They need to identify locations, negotiate sale, rentals, all legal formalities etc. The operations personnel then starts getting the store ready, working with projects teams, interior specialists, visual merchandisers etc.

Front end operations include the shop floor sales consultants, sales executives, floor managers and sales managers. They are all responsible for the day to day running of stores, interaction with customers, closing the sales, being present at the cash till, handling customer complaints etc. They report to the store manager who is also accountable for the profitability of the store. The final accountability of the store’s performance lies with the retail sales manager and the operations manager.

Support functions

The Human resource manager involved in recruiting and training of the staff forms an important support system for the retail business. In addition to all this, for the transmission of information and data management, information technology professionals are required.

This whole team of people are required if the Indian retail dream is to be fulfilled.

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Bindu says, "Books have been my best friends for as long as I can remember & writing my dream. Like they say in the alchemist if you wish hard enough, the whole universe comes together to make your dream come true."

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